Ceres Commends U.S. Offer of Domestic Emissions Cuts Towards an International Climate Agreementhttp://www.ceres.org/press/press-releases/ceres-commends-u.s.-offer-of-domestic-emissions-cuts-towards-an-international-climate-agreement
The nonprofit sustainability advocacy organization Ceres commends the Obama Administration’s announcement today of its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution including a 26-28 percent cut in U.S. emissions below 2005 baseline by 2025 for the upcoming UN climate conference in Paris this December.The nonprofit sustainability advocacy organization Ceres commends the Obama Administration’s announcement today of its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution including a 26-28 percent cut in U.S. emissions below 2005 baseline by 2025 for the upcoming UN climate conference in Paris this December.

Mindy Lubber, Ceres President and director of the Investor Network on Climate Risk says:

“The higher end of the 2025 target is credible, comprehensive and highly achievable. It sets an example of leadership for other countries to follow, and moves the world closer to holding temperature rise to 2-degrees to avoid catastrophic climate change. The U.S. target also sends a clear signal to the global investor community that the U.S. is committed to building a low carbon economy. It will stimulate business innovation and ingenuity and the necessary flow of capital from dirty fossil fuels to cleaner technologies. Continued leadership on the part of the U.S. is crucial to a strong international agreement to tackle climate change. Ceres looks forward to working with the Administration and with business leaders from across the country on strategies and policies that will help the U.S. to meet and exceed today’s stated target.”

About CeresCeres is a nonprofit organization mobilizing business and investor leadership on climate change, water scarcity and other sustainability challenges. Ceres directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), a network of institutional investors with collective assets totaling more than $13 trillion. Ceres also directsBusiness for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy (BICEP), an advocacy coalition of dozens of companies committed to working with policymakers to pass meaningful energy and climate legislation. For more information, visit www.ceres.org or follow on Twitter @CeresNews.

]]>No publisherMegan Doherty2015-03-31T15:19:18ZPress ReleaseLevi Strauss & Co.: Connecting the Drops With Your Jeanshttp://www.ceres.org/press/press-clips/levi-strauss-co.-connecting-the-drops-with-your-jeans
Levi Strauss & Co. recently joined Ceres’ “Connect the Drops” campaign to show our support for the importance of water conservation in California. As a company, we’re committed to increasing awareness around this critical issue. That’s why, after undertaking a new Product Lifecycle Assessment (LCA), we’ve announced a new campaign to educate consumers about the environmental impact of their jeans.Levi Strauss & Co. recently joined Ceres’ “Connect the Drops” campaign to show our support for the importance of water conservation in California. As a company, we’re committed to increasing awareness around this critical issue. That’s why, after undertaking a new Product Lifecycle Assessment (LCA), we’ve announced a new campaign to educate consumers about the environmental impact of their jeans.

A New Environmental Impact Study

As part of our ongoing water conservation efforts, we’re sharing a new Product Lifecycle Assessment (LCA), which is an update to our groundbreaking 2007 study on the environmental impact of our products. Our new study analyzed the complete product lifecycle of a pair of jeans. It probed deeper into the environmental impacts of cotton in key growing regions, apparel production and distribution in a range of locations, and consumer washing and drying habits in key markets.

The LCA found that fiber production (predominantly cotton) continues to consume the most water over the lifecycle of a jean. To reduce the impact of cotton consumption, we’re working with the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) to train farmers to grow cotton using less water. We plan to continue working with our global suppliers in the area, with the goal of sourcing approximately 75 percent of our cotton as Better Cotton by 2020, up from six percent today.

Helping Consumers Understand Their Environmental Impact

But we can’t do this alone. Our latest LCA findings underscore the need for people to start rethinking the daily tasks they do out of habit, like washing jeans after every wear. Of the nearly 3,800 liters of water used in the lifecycle of a pair of jeans, consumer care has the second-highest impact on consumption, after cotton. We found that by wearing jeans 10 times before washing, American consumers can reduce the water and climate change impact of washing their jeans by 77 percent, UK and French consumers by 75 percent and Chinese consumers by 61 percent.

In order to help consumers better understand their environmental impact, LS&Co. created the “Are You Ready to Come Clean” quiz. By sharing some basic information about your washing and drying habits, you can find out how much water and energy you use compared to average consumers in the U.S., U.K., France and China. After taking the quiz, we hope you’ll click our #WashLessPledge and commit to washing your jeans less often (or not at all!) between World Water Day and Earth Day.

How We Saved One Billion Liters of Water

Why is reducing water use so important to LS&Co.? Water is essential to our business: every step of the process to create a garment requires water — from the cotton fields to manufacturing facilities. And in an era of increasing water scarcity, we recognize that water is essential for communities, agriculture, and a multitude of other industries.

And that’s why we’re really proud today to also announce that we’ve saved one billion liters of water since 2011 through our Water<Less process, which reduces the water used in garment finishing by up to 96 percent.

Nope, that’s not a typo. One BILLION liters of water!

To put that into perspective, that’s equivalent to:

165 million toilet flushes

Or 10.56 million 10-minute showers

Or 3.9 million bath tubs

When it comes to conserving water, no action is too small. So go ahead, squeeze a few more wears out of your favorite blues. Together we can do our planet and future generations a favor by working to protect this limited resource.

Michael Kobori is Vice President, Sustainability, at Levi Strauss & Co. This column originally appeared on Unzipped.

]]>No publisherMegan Dohertyconnect the drops2015-03-17T14:25:00ZPress ClipNew Ceres Report Aims to Improve Investor Practices on Global Water Riskshttp://www.ceres.org/press/press-releases/new-ceres-report-aims-to-improve-investor-practices-on-global-water-risks
Amid growing concerns about water scarcity and other global sustainability risks, the nonprofit group Ceres today released a new report designed to help global investors improve their analysis and decision-making on such issues.Amid growing concerns about water scarcity and other global sustainability risks, the nonprofit group Ceres today released a new report designed to help global investors improve their analysis and decision-making on such issues. The report was announced at a water-risk investor event hosted by Bloomberg.

The report, based on interviews with dozens of institutional investors and water experts around the world, summarizes existing practices for integrating environment, social and governance (ESG) issues – and water issues, in particular – into mainstream investment strategies. Its biggest focus is on water-related investment practices and includes specific recommendations for how the global investors can factor water into investment policies, portfolio management, strategic planning and client relationship building.

"Global water risks are a growing threat to companies, bond issuers, infrastructure and the broader economy, but most investors aren’t yet rigorously evaluating how these issues could affect their portfolios," said Monika Freyman, CFA and water expert at Ceres who authored the report, An Investor Handbook for Water Risk Integration. "By mapping out steps for broader and deeper consideration of these issues, this report aims to both help investors and contribute to more sustainable water practices that will ensure a vibrant economy for future generations."

"Although there have been many reports raising awareness of material sustainability risks, few reports outline in such detail steps investors can take to influence the management of these risks and opportunities," said Michael McCauley, senior officer of Investment Programs & Governance at the Florida State Board of Administration, which manages more than $180 billion of assets for Florida’s retirees, who wrote the report foreword.

The report makes clear that water risks are tangible and growing. Citing population growth, too many competing demands and climate change impacts, the World Economic Forum recently ranked water availability as the world's "top global risk."

The fact that more than one billion people already live in water-stressed regions - and that this number is expected to double or triple by 2025 - is just one dimension of this global threat. Droughts across the U.S. Midwest, California, Brazil and China are impacting not only corporate activities, but also entire economies.

About CeresCeres is an advocate for sustainability leadership. Ceres mobilizes a powerful coalition of investors, companies and public interest groups to accelerate and expand the adoption of sustainable business practices and solutions to build a healthy global economy. Ceres directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), a network of over 100 institutional investors with collective assets totaling more than $13 trillion. Ceres also directs Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP), an advocacy coalition of more than 30 businesses committed to working with policy makers to pass meaningful energy and climate legislation. For more information, visit www.ceres.org or follow on Twitter @CeresNews.

]]>No publisherMegan Doherty2015-03-10T16:40:00ZPress ReleaseBeer Companies Join Call for Action on Climate Changehttp://www.ceres.org/press/press-releases/beer-companies-join-call-for-action-on-climate-change
New Belgium Brewery, Guinness, Smuttynose Brewing Company and Deschutes Brewery join dozens of brewers in announcing today they’ve signed the Climate Declaration, a business call to action that urges policymakers to seize the economic opportunity of tackling climate change.

March 17 Update: In time for St. Patrick’s Day, Sierra Nevada and fourteen additional breweries have signed the Brewer’s Climate Declaration, initially announced on March 10. Total number of beer companies now signing the Brewery Climate Declaration is 42 and counting...

New Belgium Brewery, Guinness, Smuttynose Brewing Company and Deschutes Brewery join dozens of brewers in announcing today they’ve signed the Climate Declaration, a business call to action that urges policymakers to seize the economic opportunity of tackling climate change. The 24 brewery signatories range from local microbreweries to major international brands, and are headquartered all across America, from Oregon to Wyoming to Maine.

Launched in 2013 by Ceres, a nonprofit sustainability advocacy organization, and its business network, Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy (BICEP), the Climate Declaration has more than 1,300 signatories nationwide, including iconic brands like General Motors, Disney, Levi Strauss, Mars Inc. and eBay.

The brewing companies have signed their own Brewery Climate Declaration, a companion to the Climate Declaration, to call attention to the specific risks and opportunities, of climate change on the $246 billion industry.

“We believe that a strong economy and a stable climate go hand in hand,” said Jenn Vervier, Director of Strategy and Sustainability at New Belgium Brewery in Colorado. “We’ve committed to making our business sustainable, and it’s more important than ever that businesses engage with policymakers to support forward-thinking climate and energy policies.”

The beer industry faces multiple climate change impacts. Warmer temperatures and extreme weather events are harming the production of hops, a critical ingredient of beer that grows primarily in the Pacific Northwest. Rising demand and lower yields have driven the price of hops up by more than 250 percent in the past decade. Clean water resources, another key ingredient, are also becoming scarcer in the West as a result of climate-related droughts and reduced snow pack.

“These brewing companies see the financial upside of tackling climate change today, both for their own bottom lines and the overall economy," said Anne Kelly, Director of Policy and BICEP at Ceres, a nonprofit sustainability advocacy group. “Many are implementing creative solutions that lower their carbon footprints and cut costs, but they recognize that strong policies are essential for tackling climate change at the scale and pace that’s needed.”

Many of the brewers signing the Climate Declaration are taking their own steps to lower their carbon footprints:

Measuring their greenhouse gas emissions. Deschutes Brewery was the first craft brewery to operate by the Global Reporting Initiative standards and make its carbon footprint publicly available. New Belgium Brewing has completed a full life-cycle analysis on its most popular Fat Tire beer. Brewery Vivant also measures greenhouse gas emissions and has completed a life-cycle analysis of its FarmHand beer.

Cutting energy use by recycling steam. Fremont Brewing and Odell Brewing capture steam from the brewing process and use it for heat.

Capturing methane. New Belgium Brewery and Smuttynose Brewery capture methane – a byproduct of their wastewater treatment process and a potent greenhouse gas – and use it to generate electricity. The captured methane provides New Belgium with 15 percent of the brewery’s electricity needs.

Cutting transportation emissions. Many breweries are cutting their transportation footprints by reducing packaging and choosing cans to lighten their loads. Guinness has partnered with the US EPA Smartways program that works with transportation carriers to reduce carbon emissions through better logistics.

Becoming LEED Certified Brewery Vivant became the first LEED-certified brewery in the United States in 2012, employing high-efficiency heating and cooling units. Smuttynose Brewing recently opened a LEED-gold certified pub in New Hampshire with LED on-demand lighting systems.

“Energy-efficient lighting is one of Widmer Brothers Brewing’s first steps towards minimizing our energy use,” said Julia Person, Sustainability Manager at Widmer Brothers Brewing. “Across the brewery, we have replaced all inefficient fluorescent lighting with efficient high-output lamps or LEDs, and installed occupancy and daylight sensors. Our electricity intensity dropped by 12 percent in 2014, to just 9.2 kWhs per barrel of beer produced.”

Brewers are also increasing their water efficiency, especially in areas struggling with drought and water scarcity. Odell Brewing uses a modified vacuum pump which triple-uses water and saves the Colorado brewery 25 million gallons of water annually.

The beer brewing industry is a major economic driver in America, with over 2,800 breweries producing $246.5 billion in economic output in 2012. Directly and indirectly, the beer industry creates over 2 million American jobs. Every brewery job creates 45 direct jobs in agriculture, transportation, distributing, business, packaging, machinery, and retail.

About CeresCeres is an advocate for sustainability leadership. Ceres mobilizes a powerful coalition of investors, companies and public interest groups to accelerate and expand the adoption of sustainable business practices and solutions to build a healthy global economy. Ceres directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), a network of over 100 institutional investors with collective assets totaling more than $13 trillion. Ceres also directs Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP), an advocacy coalition of more than 30 businesses committed to working with policy makers to pass meaningful energy and climate legislation. For more information, visit www.ceres.org or follow on Twitter @CeresNews.

]]>No publisherMegan Doherty2015-03-10T12:50:00ZPress ReleaseAn Investor Handbook for Water Integrationhttp://www.ceres.org/resources/reports/an-investor-handbook-for-water-integration
This report offers recommendation on how to integrate water into investment policies, portfolio management, strategic planning and client relationship building. It serves as a stepping-stone for managers just beginning to integrate water risks and opportunities into their thinking, as well as for advanced investors looking to deepen their practices.This report offers recommendation on how to integrate water into investment policies, portfolio management, strategic planning and client relationship building. It serves as a stepping-stone for managers just beginning to integrate water risks and opportunities into their thinking, as well as for advanced investors looking to deepen their practices.

Recommendations are designed to guide individual investment managers. It is also a helpful resource for those in the data and research ecosystem looking to help asset managers and owners expand their understanding of sustainability risks.

]]>No publisherBrian Sant2015-03-10T12:15:00ZResourceDriscoll’s leading charge for change in water policieshttp://www.ceres.org/press/press-clips/driscoll2019s-leading-charge-for-change-in-water-policies
Driscoll’s berry company announced its involvement in “Connect the Drops,” a campaign that combines the voices of diverse companies into a single call to action demanding bolder water management policies and solutions for California.Driscoll’s berry company announced its involvement in “Connect the Drops,” a campaign that combines the voices of diverse companies into a single call to action demanding bolder water management policies and solutions for California.

The non-profit advocacy group, Ceres, facilitates the collaborative campaign, which launched today at a press conference.

“As a family-owned company that is highly dependent on groundwater, we recognize that our future hinges on reliable water sources,” Kelley Bell, Driscoll’s vice president of social and environmental impact, said in a news release. “Without good water stewardship our communities will suffer and the future economy of California will be bleak,”

“We saw a gap with the business voice in these [water] discussions,” said Kirsten James, senior manager of water and climate policy at Ceres. “Businesses recognize they have a big economic stake in ensuring water security.”

Other businesses in the “Connect the Drops” campaign are General Mills, Coca-Cola North America and KB Homes.

Driscoll’s has been a leader in water conservation for years. In 2010, it helped launch the Community Water Dialogue, a collaborative coalition of landowners, farmers, and government agencies to address Pajaro Valley’s water crisis.

The three goals of the dialogue were to protect the Pajaro Valley as an important agricultural resource, to recognize that importing water in with a pipeline was not a solution, and that its members be willing to implement diverse strategies that will entail costs and sacrifices in order to bring the aquifer in balance, according to the CWD website.

“Driscoll’s recognized that we are in a state of emergency. [They are] proactive working with their growers in the region to use new technologies that help to maximize every drop of water that’s used,” James said.

One of the ways the company conserves water is to partner with farmers, the Resource Conservation District and Sustainable Conservation to develop performance-based incentives to reduce water use and improve water quality, according to Driscoll’s website.

All the businesses in the Connect the Drops campaign will make or have already made a commitment to conserve their own water use, James said, but the campaign also hopes to influence water management policy at the state level.

“You can do a lot with your own water stewardship but that won’t be enough in solving the all the problems with water in California,” she said.

“The business community’s voice in elevating the issues – through efforts like Connect the Drops – is hugely important for the future of our state’s economy and well-being,” said Felicia Marcus, chair of the State Water Resources Control Board.

]]>No publisherMegan Dohertyconnect the dropsExclude from Homepage2015-03-09T14:15:00ZPress ClipConnect the Drops on water conservationhttp://www.ceres.org/press/blog-posts/connect-the-drops-on-water-conservation
Water is essential to human life … and to running our business. In fact, our sustainability work centers on protecting and conserving the natural resource base on which our business depends. Water is at the top of the “most critical natural resources to our business list.”Water is essential to human life … and to running our business.

In fact, our sustainability work centers on protecting and conserving the natural resource base on which our business depends. Water is at the top of the “most critical natural resources to our business list.”

We simply could not deliver any of the products in our portfolio without a healthy water supply around the globe.

Water conservation is an important issue to many companies, industries and U.S. citizens right now, but none more than those who live or do business in California.

Now entering the fourth year of a devastating statewide drought, the need for water conservation and stewardship in California has never been more critical.

As the nation’s biggest agriculture state – from which we source a tremendous amount of ingredients that make up our products and which is home to several of our production facilities – California and the devastating drought that has struck the state is top of mind for us at General Mills.

So, when Ceres, a nonprofit sustainability advocacy organization, came to us with a collective effort to bring focus and collaboration to the issue, we immediately signed on.

“We cannot risk our state’s economic future by relying on outdated water management practices, policies and infrastructure. Now is the time for fresh thinking, shared purpose and bold solutions to build a resilient water future for all Californians. And it is incumbent on us—the business community—to help lead the way.”

Ceres called on signatories from a broad range of industries that have a crucial stake in the health of California’s water supply to participate in the coalition, including General Mills, Driscoll’s, KB Homes, Coca-Cola and more.

Kirsten James, senior manager of California Policy at Ceres stated during a press conference on Thursday, “Connect the Drops will bring the much needed business voice to the table on water policy in Sacramento for the first time.”

Ceres will be working with policy makers to advance positive actions to secure California’s water future.

California and the General Mills Supply Chain

California and its water supply play an important role in our supply chain. From dates in southern California to tomatoes and almonds in the central valley to berries along the central coast, and dairy statewide, we rely on thousands of California farmers to provide us with high-quality ingredients for our products.

Approximately 99 percent of the water consumed to create and distribute our products occurs outside our direct operations – primarily in agriculture. We believe that improving the health and conservation of water in California and around the world requires significant collaboration.

Over the past five years, we have been working to implement a global water stewardship strategy across our value chain to improve the health of watersheds accessed by our operations and key growing regions.

The result of this work was a targeted list of our most material and at-risk watersheds where we can have significant impact, focusing on those with challenges in the areas of water quantity and non-point source pollution from agriculture. California in particular rose to the top in the TNC assessment as a critical watershed within our supply chain.

Today, we are taking action to develop or participate in watershed health strategies for these highest risk watersheds, including two in the state of California. In order to be successful, this work has to include a broad mix of private and public entities in each watershed.

Ultimately, we recognize that in order for our business to thrive, California farmers and ecosystems must also thrive. General Mills is committed to California as a key growing region for decades to come.

Signing on to the Connect the Drops Campaign supports the water needs of growers and all Californians and the natural resources upon which we all depend.

Editor’s note: In 2014, General Mills announced a global water policy, which provides a framework that guides us as we engage with stakeholders to improve the health of watersheds, particularly those in regions where we operate. To learn more about General Mills’ water stewardship efforts, read the company’s water policy.

Subscribe to “A Taste of General Mills” by email – here – and we’ll notify you about our latest posts.

]]>No publisherMegan Dohertyconnect the dropsExclude from Homepage2015-03-09T14:04:01ZBlog ClipBusiness coalition forms in response to California droughthttp://www.ceres.org/press/press-clips/business-coalition-forms-in-response-to-california-drought
A coalition of businesses including The Coca-Cola Company and Gap Inc. announced Thursday it is backing Gov. Jerry Brown's call for conservation in drought-stricken California.A coalition of businesses including The Coca-Cola Company and Gap Inc. announced Thursday it is backing Gov. Jerry Brown's call for conservation in drought-stricken California.

The individual companies didn't say they would scale back their own operations to save water as California heads into a fourth dry year. Instead, the group organized by Ceres, a Boston environmental nonprofit, says it is urging sustainable water management.

That includes lobbying for state and local policies promoting water efficiency and restrictions on tapping underground wells. But when it comes to conservation, the state has been focused on residents instead of businesses, pressuring Californians to save water by letting their lawns wither and taking shorter showers.

Brown called on residents to slash water use by 20 percent when he declared a drought emergency last January. He released a separate long-term water plan calling for conservation targets, which members of the business coalition committed to supporting.

Other members of the coalition include General Mills, Levi Strauss & Co, Symantec, homebuilder KB Home and Driscoll's, a berry supplier. Some of their representatives said in a conference call Thursday that that they are voluntarily conserving water and taking steps such as leak-detection programs and cleaning out bottles with ionized air instead of water.

"These actions alone won't solve California's water crisis," said Kirsten James of Ceres.

The business members of the coalition were vague on what specific changes they want to see in how the government manages water.

An exception was on protecting groundwater regulations. Driven to action by the drought, the state Legislature last session overhauled the state's largely unregulated underground wells, a key water source in dry periods. The coalition would fight attempts to unravel the changes, James said.

]]>No publisherMegan Dohertyconnect the drops2015-03-06T15:05:00ZPress ClipGeneral Mills, Driscoll’s, Coca-Cola & KB Home Launch Business Campaign Urging Bolder Strategies To Conserve Waterhttp://www.ceres.org/press/press-releases/general-mills-driscoll2019s-coca-cola-kb-home-launch-business-campaign-urging-bolder-strategies-to-conserve-water
As California’s devastating drought enters its fourth year, and farmers face a second consecutive year with reduced surface water supplies, a diverse coalition of global businesses with significant supply chains or operations in California today announced Connect the Drops, a new campaign urging aggressive measures to maximize California's local and state water resources.

As California’s devastating drought enters its fourth year, and farmers face a second consecutive year with reduced surface water supplies, a diverse coalition of global businesses with significant supply chains or operations in California today announced Connect the Drops, a new campaign urging aggressive measures to maximize California's local and state water resources.

Launched by Ceres, a nonprofit sustainability advocacy organization, the campaign centers on a public declaration, signed by The Coca-Cola Company, Driscoll’s, Gap Inc., General Mills, KB Home, Levi Strauss and Co. and Symantec. More companies are expected to join the effort in the coming weeks and months.The declaration states:

“We cannot risk our state’s economic future by relying on outdated water management practices, policies and infrastructure. Now is the time for fresh thinking, shared purpose and bold solutions to build a resilient water future for all Californians. And it is incumbent on us—the business community—to help lead the way.”

“Driscoll’s roots in California stretch back nearly 150 years in the Pajaro Valley where Driscoll’s originated,” said Kelley Bell, VP of Social and Environmental Impact, Driscoll’s, the world’s largest berry company. “As a family-owned company that is highly dependent on groundwater, we recognize that our future hinges on reliable water sources. Without good water stewardship our communities will suffer and the future economy of California will be bleak. We joined Ceres campaign because we are not alone in facing this challenge or in recognizing the threat, and the solution will only come from a shared understanding of the problem and a willingness to address it together.”

Currently 93 percent of California is categorized as being in a severe, extreme or exceptional drought. The state’s agriculture economy lost more than $2.2 billion in 2014, and farmers left more than half a million acres of fields unplanted.

“Water is an issue we can no longer take for granted – whether we are looking at supply reliability, environmental protection, or water quality. Fortunately, there are solutions within reach for the challenges we face. The business community’s voice in elevating the issues – through efforts like Connect the Drops – is hugely important for the future of our state’s economy and well-being,” said Felicia Marcus, Chair, State Water Resources Control Board.

Companies signing on to the campaign agree to 1) make and implement business commitments to support the state’s action plan for water conservation, and 2) engage with policymakers, employees, customers and their peers on improving water management and enhancing water efficiency.

Driscoll’s, for example, has implemented a suite of measures in the Pajaro Valley, from requiring their growers there to report groundwater use, to co-founding a public-private partnership called the Community Water Dialogue. The Pajaro Valley Community Water Dialogue has several work streams including the development of groundwater recharge zones and supporting the use of technologies for irrigation management.

Coca-Cola North America, which operates 53 facilities in California, has implemented water efficiency improvements saving nearly 280 million gallons of water.

“Coca-Cola recognizes that clean, accessible water is essential to the health of communities and ecosystems – and is indispensable for economic prosperity,” said Jon Radtke, manager of sustainability for Coca-Cola North America. “In California and around the world, we work with our facilities, local water agencies and community partners to evaluate water resources and maximize water conservation efforts. Initiatives like Connect the Drops are important as our water resources become more stressed. By working together with other businesses, government and civil society, we hope to make a much greater impact than any one organization or sector could hope to achieve alone.”

Similarly, KB Home, one of the nation’s largest homebuilders, developed the Double ZeroHouse that is so highly water efficient it uses less than half the water of an average home.

"KB Home has prioritized water conservation in our development projects,” said Larry Gotlieb of KB Home. “The Connect the Drops campaign will help the California business community highlight to elected officials that efforts spent on water stewardship now will ensure the strength of California’s economy for decades to come."

General Mills operates several production facilities in California and sources a large number of ingredients from thousands of tomato, almond, berry, dairy and other farmers across the state.

“General Mills takes its responsibility to be good stewards of the planet’s resources very seriously and, in California, that means reducing our water usage at our production facilities and working with our growers and suppliers to ensure agriculture continues to thrive in a sustainable manner, said Ellen Silva, senior manager of Global Sustainability, General Mills. “We firmly believe that in order for Californian citizens, businesses, farmers and the ecosystem to thrive, we must all work together to manage the water supply sustainably.”

“Connect the Drops will bring the much needed business voice to the table on water policy in Sacramento," said Kirsten James, a Senior Manager at Ceres who is directing the Connect the Drops campaign. "It is critical for a diverse group of stakeholders to demand aggressive action from our state leaders in order to secure California’s water future."

Headquartered in Boston, Ceres recently opened a new office in San Francisco to expand its work in California. “With the opening of our office in California, Ceres is poised to mobilize our networks of companies and investors in support of statewide sustainable climate, energy and water policies,” said Ana Zacapa, Director, Ceres California.

About CeresCeres is a nonprofit organization mobilizing business and investor leadership on climate change, water scarcity and other sustainability challenges. Ceres directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), a network of over 100 institutional investors with collective assets totaling more than $13 trillion. Ceres also directs Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy (BICEP), an advocacy coalition of more than 30 businesses committed to working with policy makers to pass meaningful energy and climate legislation. For more information, visit www.ceres.org or follow on Twitter @CeresNews.

]]>No publisherMegan Dohertyconnect the drops2015-03-05T18:55:00ZPress ReleaseIn a Parched World, We Have to Value Every Drophttp://www.ceres.org/press/press-clips/in-a-parched-world-we-have-to-value-every-drop
The world is getting thirstier and we’re fast running out of ways to quench it. A rapidly growing population, too many competing demands, and climate change impacts are creating a water availability emergency that the World Economic Forum recently ranked as the world’s “top global risk.”The world is getting thirstier and we’re fast running out of ways to quench it.

A rapidly growing population, too many competing demands, and climate change impacts are creating a water availability emergency that the World Economic Forum recently ranked as the world’s “top global risk.”

The fact that more than one billion people already live in water-stressed regions – and that this number is expected to double or triple by 2025, according to the UN – is just one dimension of this colossal threat.

There’s also social and economic disruption. California is now in the fourth year of a devastating drought that left a half-million acres of farmland unplanted last year, causing more than $1.5 billion of economic losses. Water-deprived Texas is riding the wave of a hydraulic fracturing boom, but it’s leaving less water for farmers and communities. Meanwhile, China’s water problems are already costing the country about 2.3 percent of its annual GDP.

“So much of life is affected by what happens with water,” said Robert Sandford, a leading thinker on water in Canada, speaking at this year’s World Economic Forum. “We didn’t realize until recently how much our economy and society relied on hydrologic stability.”

Tackling these global water challenges will require a major shift in how freshwater is managed, allocated, priced, litigated and, ultimately, used. It means finding regulatory and market mechanisms that ensure water’s true worth — to human life, ecosystems as well as economic well-being — is appropriately valued.

Re-thinking how we value water is a critical first step. Water is a finite and precious resource, but our economic systems treat it as limitless and of little value. For many companies and other water users, their water bills are so small that it hardly seems worthwhile to conserve. The result is unsustainable water use across much of our global economy — from industry to agriculture to homeowners.

Ceres is bringing unique capital market solutions to these challenges. Through cutting-edge research and direct engagement with the business community, we are pushing to change the way that companies and public entities manage water, and the way that investors consider water availability and water quality risks in their investment decisions. One of our key pillars for working with the business sector is the Ceres Aqua Gauge, which provides an easy and efficient way for companies to assess and improve their water risk management strategies.

In the United States, we are focused on three key sectors that use the vast majority of the country’s water — public water utilities, the energy sector and agriculture. Taken together, these sectors are responsible for more than 90 percent of the nation’s water consumption. By improving their water practices, we can build an economy that protects freshwater for future generations.

Agriculture has long been the country’s biggest water user, especially in the Midwest and West, where many of our primary food staples are grown. California’s agriculture sector alone generates $36 billion a year of revenue and produces nearly half of US-grown fruits, nuts and vegetables.

No doubt, American farmers are using water more efficiently. A recent study by the US Department of Agriculture, for example, showed a 9 percent drop in the irrigated water use nationally since 1998. Still, with increasingly intense droughts and groundwater supplies under pressure like never before, the industry’s overall water footprint is not sustainable, creating long-term risks for ecosystems and the economy alike.

Ceres has been especially focused on the corn sector, the nation’s biggest crop by far. Last year U.S. corn growers harvested a record 14.2 billion bushels, using one-third of America’s cropland (an area twice the size of Florida.) Nearly 40 percent of the corn is for feeding cows, pigs and chicken, with another 35 percent being sold to ethanol refiners to meet government-mandated blending requirements for our nation’s gasoline supplies. Less than 10 percent is for direct human consumption

But, as a Ceres report released last year makes clear, the corn sector’s water practices are taking an enormous toll.

The industry uses vast amounts of fertilizer, far more than any other agriculture sector. In states like Iowa, nitrate runoff is polluting streams, rivers and water supplies – so much, in fact, that the Des Moines water utility recently threatened to sue three counties for polluting its primary water source, the Raccoon River. Corn-related runoff is also the single largest source of pollution to the Gulf of Mexico’s “dead zone,” an area the size of Connecticut that is essentially devoid of life.

Lack of water is another problem, especially in Kansas, Texas, Colorado and Nebraska, which rely on fragile groundwater aquifers to irrigate their cornfields. The Ceres report showed that more than half of the country’s irrigated corn production, worth more than $9 billion a year, depends on groundwater from the Ogallala aquifer where groundwater levels are declining.

Unfortunately, climate change will likely add to these pressures. Numerous studies conclude that the negative impacts of climate change on agricultural production in the Midwest will outweigh the positive impacts.

Tackling these wide-ranging water challenges requires stronger state and federal regulations, but progress in this regard has been painfully slow. Ceres believes the biggest catalyst for change is the industry itself – in particular, the food, feed and energy companies which buy most of the nation’s corn and have an enormous stake in ensuring that corn production is reliable and sustainable.

Companies such as Coca-Cola, General Mills and Unilever have all set voluntary goals to sustainably source all of their priority agricultural ingredients – including corn – by 2020. With our guidance, PepsiCo has launched a sustainable farming initiative that aims to reduce water and fertilizer use by its growers all over the world. We’re also encouraged by public/private partnerships such as Field to Market, which recently announced an ambitious effort to accelerate sustainable growing practices on 20 percent of the nation’s farmland — 50 million acres — by 2020.

*******

How the country’s tens of thousands of public water utilities manage water use by residential and business customers is another key focus of Ceres’ work.

U.S. water utilities have long operated on the assumption of ever-increasing water demand and limitless water supplies, which meant they could sell more water, which meant they would have more revenues to pay their bills. That assumption worked in the 20th century when water was cheap and plentiful, and the federal government was willing to bankroll expensive water supply projects that made cities like Los Angeles and Phoenix possible.

But times have changed. Water supplies in many parts of the country, especially the arid West, are dropping like the rings on an emptying bathtub. And developing new water sources is becoming far more costly, the result of federal funds drying up and the water itself needing to be piped longer distances.

The San Antonio Water System, for example, recently signed a contract with a Spanish company, Abengoa, to build a 140-mile-long pipeline at a cost of $3.4 billion to move groundwater across Central Texas to San Antonio.

For the past few years, Ceres has been highlighting the financial risks of going further afield for water, beginning with its groundbreaking 2010 report, The Ripple Effect: Water Risk in the Municipal Bond Market. The report, done in collaboration with Water Asset Management, is designed to help bond-rating agencies; utilities and investors understand the long-term financial risks of trying to manage water shortages by building new water supply projects.

But Ceres also recognizes that utilities need better tools to avoid these costly projects while meeting future water demand.

Many utilities are raising water rates and enacting water conservation programs to limit to water demand. These approaches are sensible in many ways, but they have an unintended consequence: decreased water use reduces the revenues that water utilities need to pay their bills.

Clearly, water conservation is a far less costly approach to managing limited water availability than expensive new water-supply projects. But water utilities, which traditionally balance their budgets based on how much water they sell, must then shoulder the burden of too little revenue.

Ceres is working with utilities to solve this financing conundrum. Through the CFO Connect project, Ceres is working directly with water utilities in Colorado, Utah and Texas to develop new pricing models that will allow them to achieve a dual goal of revenue stability and water conservation that will reduce long-term water costs for consumers.

A shining example of this is Aurora, CO, which in response to a prolonged drought replaced its traditional water pricing structure with a block rate system. An average-sized home now pays $5.27 per thousand gallons if it uses up to 20,000 gallons, $6 per thousand gallons for up to 40,000 gallons and $7.50 thereafter. The city has also changed its water connection fees by charging less if it’s a small home with xeriscaping (landscaping that doesn’t require watering) and more if it has a big house with a large lawn.

*******

Hydraulic fracturing energy production, which uses significant water for each of its oil and gas extraction wells, is the new kid on the block in tapping the country’s limited freshwater resources.

A report issued by Ceres last year showed that the industry is using significant amounts of water in parched states like Texas and Colorado where fracking is booming.

Based on water-use data from nearly 40,000 fracking wells, the report showed that over 55 percent of the wells were in regions experiencing drought and 36 percent in regions with significant groundwater depletion. Water-use impacts were especially large at local levels, sometimes exceeding the water used by all residents in some Texas and Colorado counties.

The report has had an important role in motivating local communities and policymakers to look more closely at the industry’s water sourcing impacts and the urgency for reducing them. Texas is especially focused, for example, on minimizing groundwater impacts and examining current groundwater permitting loopholes, which allow companies to use as much water as they want for fracking. California has improved its water sourcing reporting requirements and is scrutinizing the practice of providing industry exemptions in an effort to protect vulnerable aquifers from fracking-related wastewater disposal.

The report has also helped in getting improvements from the industry itself, such as the company Apache, which is now recycling 100 percent of its fracking wastewater in key regions, such as the Permian Basin in West Texas.

Clearly, however, the industry should be doing more to substantially improve its on-the-ground practices. Failing to do so will almost certainly put the industry’s growth and limited freshwater supplies in states like Colorado and Texas on a collision course.

]]>No publisherBrooke Barton2015-03-02T15:34:26ZPress ClipCeres 2011-2012 Sustainability Reporthttp://www.ceres.org/about-us/financials/ceres-2011-2012-sustainability-report
The 2011-2012 Ceres Sustainability Report includes data that describe our progress over the period 2011-2012 toward reaching specific goals associated with a set of key performance indicators. In addition, the report offers a self-evaluation of organizational performance relative to relevant expectations set forth in the Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability.The 2011-2012 Ceres Sustainability Report includes data that describe our progress over the period 2011-2012 toward reaching specific goals associated with a set of key performance indicators. In addition, the report offers a self-evaluation of organizational performance relative to relevant expectations set forth in the Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability.]]>No publisherMegan Dohertysustainability report2015-02-25T15:13:10ZResourceCiti's $100 Billion Downpayment On Clean Energy Futurehttp://www.ceres.org/press/blog-posts/citis-100-billion-downpayment-on-clean-energy-future
Knowing the world needs to invest an additional trillion dollars per year into clean energy by 2030 might sound daunting. This week, however, we saw a down payment on that clean energy future we so desperately need: a new $100 billion environmental finance initiative announced by one of the world’s largest financial institutions, Citigroup.Knowing the world needs to invest an additional trillion dollars per year into clean energy by 2030 might sound daunting. This week, however, we saw a down payment on that clean energy future we so desperately need: a new $100 billion environmental finance initiative announced by one of the world’s largest financial institutions, Citigroup.

In 2007, Citi set a similar goal: to lend, invest, and facilitate $50 billion by 2016. The company met that goal three years early, and is now upping the ante by doubling its commitment. Citi is showing that investing in clean energy is smart business, and that – with a bit of ambition and commitment – it can be done right now. It’s a clear market signal that should resonate with the industry.

Ceres President Mindy Lubber addresses NGOs, investors and business partners at Citi event in NYC

At Ceres, we advocate for sustainability leadership. We work with corporations and investors to better integrate sustainability into business planning to build a sustainable global economy. Ceres supported the development of Citi’s sustainability strategy over the past several years, in large part by bringing together investors, NGOs and other experts to have a “no holds barred” discussion about the company’s vision for leadership in the financial services sector.

I joined Citi CEO Michael Corbat in New York this week as he announced the strategy, which will include – among other things – financing for large renewable-energy projects such as municipal infrastructure to reduce water waste; assistance for clients to address environmental risks; and an 80 percent absolute greenhouse gas reduction target.

Citi has a long road ahead as it strives to meet its goals, but this $100 billion commitment is bold and bigger than what we’ve seen before. It’s a critical step in the right direction, and shows what corporate leaders are capable of when they put their minds to it.

To be sure, Citi and its peers have a tremendous role to play in battling climate change. Now, we must call on the financial services industry to do more. We all share the responsibility of addressing climate change.

Last month, Bloomberg New Energy Finance released the clean energy investment numbers for 2014. The good news? clean energy investment jumped 16%, to $310 billion, in 2014, a near all-time high. The bad news? It’s just not enough.

Financial institutions must evaluate carbon asset risk in their portfolios and continue to move money into the clean energy projects we need to keep our economy moving forward, not stuck in the past. Together, we need to foster the growth of a credible, sustainable green bonds market.

Companies around the world must invest in clean energy solutions throughout their supply chains, setting measurable, time-bound goals to reduce emissions; improve the energy efficiency of operations; reduce electricity demand; and source renewable energy.

Investors must accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy by managing climate risks in their portfolios, investing in clean energy opportunities that offer competitive risk-adjusted returns across asset classes, and engaging with companies to improve their practices on clean energy and climate change.

Policymakers need to level the playing field by adopting policies that accelerate and expand investment in clean energy. We need policies that stimulate investment in energy efficiency, renewable energy and clean transportation; and put a limit and price on greenhouse gas emissions. And let’s not forget: it’s time for a global climate deal. And we have our chance this year in Paris.

We need more of the kinds of leadership demonstrated by Citi this week – across the financial services industry and beyond. There is strength in numbers, and the only way to protect the economy and environment for ourselves and future generations is to scale up our collective efforts. Here’s to always striving for bigger, better and bolder when it comes to securing that future.

]]>No publisherMindy S. Lubber JD, MBAclean trillion2015-02-20T17:10:00ZBlog ClipInside Citi’s plan to deploy $100 billion for cities, renewables, climatehttp://www.ceres.org/press/press-clips/inside-citi2019s-plan-to-deploy-100-billion-for-cities-renewables-climate
Today, Citi, the global banking giant, is announcing its next-gen sustainability strategy that includes an eye-popping number: $100 billion over 10 years for “lending, investing and facilitating” activities focused on mitigating climate and other sustainability solutions.Today, Citi, the global banking giant, is announcing its next-gen sustainability strategy that includes an eye-popping number: $100 billion over 10 years for “lending, investing and facilitating” activities focused on mitigating climate and other sustainability solutions.

Citi’s financial commitment is part of a larger five-year plan the bank is launching at an event this morning in New York. It outlines three “strategic priorities” for the bank that it says aligns the company’s corporate and sustainability strategies: combating climate change, championing sustainable cities, and promoting social progress, including “universal human rights.”

This isn’t Citi’s first sustainability strategy — or its first big financial commitment. Eight years ago, it made a $50 billion, 10-year pledge to invest in and finance projects that reduce global carbon emission; it met that goal last year, three years early.

The company long has been ahead of the curve. It was one of the first major banks to set reduction goals for energy, waste and water. In 2003, it was one of 10 global banks — and the only U.S. company — to sign the Equator Principles, a framework to help financial institutions manage environmental and social risk in project finance.

The new $100 billion goal “builds on the learnings that we accumulated during the first $50 billion,” Val Smith, director of corporate sustainability at Citi, told me recently.

“When we knew that we were going to hit the $50 billion goal three years early, we did an assessment across our different businesses. We wanted to expand the scope of the $100 billion goal so that we could capture a lot of other activities that are very important to people, that are very important to cities, that our clients are deeply engaged in.”

The group cast a broad net, looking across industry sectors, including the energy and cleantech sectors that had been the focus of the previous investment goal, Smith said. “We also wanted to include some of the innovative work that we're doing with our municipal clients, and some of the green bond work and other areas that are important to communities around the world.”

Smith and her colleagues are quick to point out that Citi isn’t lowering its standards to fund these projects.

“We're only going to do business that makes sense for Citi as a regulated financial institution,” said Marshal Salant, global head of Citi Alternative Energy Finance. “We're not going to do business that's not economic just to hit an environmental goal. But we will look at more possible alternatives, and if they pass our hurdles we're going to pursue them.”

Salant noted, “We’re very focused on energy efficiency because that's the low-hanging fruit. It's hard to get corporations to focus on that, but by helping them finance their improvements, we not only allow them to do it but we allow them to do much more.”

Citi for Cities

Another big focus of Citi’s sustainability efforts are, perhaps appropriately, cities. The company’s Citi for Cities program draws upon the company’s expertise in providing financing and advisory solutions to cities around the world.

“For example, instead of doing a giant, multi-billion-dollar wastewater treatment plant, cities are doing things like changing the tax code based on permeable square footage that a building occupies,” explained Pam Flaherty, who recently retired as Citi’s director of corporate citizenship. “Or instead of building new parking garages, they're figuring out how to use sensors so that people can better understand where there's a parking space.

“You take those, and then you take different kinds of innovative finance, and the challenge for cities is how to put those things together. We at Citi have the financing knowledge, so we're helping them put it together in a very practical way.”

Bonds — green bonds

One financing mechanism is “green bonds,” a type of financial asset designed to fund a wide range of environmental initiatives and projects. In early 2014, Citi was one of four banks that helped draft the Green Bond Principles, a set of voluntary guidelines on the development and issuance of green bonds. They encourage transparency, disclosure and integrity in the development of the green bond market.

Salant sees a rise in green-bond financing, a trend we noted in this year’s State of Green Business report. For Citi, it represents one part of the company’s financing tool kit. Salant used solar energy as an example to describe the various ways Citi might deploy funding to that technology.

“We could loan $100 million to a specific project. Or we might do an initial public offering for a solar company and help them raise money. Or we might lead a bond deal in the private placement market with institutional investors. Or we might finance a green bond for the World Bank.”

He continued: “We're already starting to see states like New York, California, Connecticut and Massachusetts talk about doing green bonds, where they'll raise money specifically for green purposes. Corporates are finding that they have projects where they want to use [green bond] money for things that are environmentally proactive.”

Old King Coal

There’s another side of this, of course. I asked Smith, Salant and Flaherty about the elephant in the room: Citi, like all other banks, isn’t getting out of the business of lending to fossil-fuel companies. How does that stack up to all these environmental initiatives and commitments?

“We are a big financier of energy around the world, and many of our clients may be involved in coal,” said Flaherty. “But some of the leading companies are also leading in moving towards renewable energy. What all of us are trying to do is increasingly shift this complicated market towards more of the environmentally friendly technologies.”

Flaherty pointed to the company’s Environmental and Social Risk Management (ESRM) unit, which sets the firm’s environmental and social risk policies and procedures and works closely with bankers to advise clients on meeting international best practices. Citi was the first U.S.-based financial institution to develop a comprehensive ESRM Standard.

The company has a well-developed process for managing environmental and social risks in transactions. Its bankers and risk managers review transactions subject to the ESRM Standard, giving each an A, B or C grade. If gaps are found in a client’s environmental and social plans, policies or practices, the ESRM unit and the client agree on an “Environmental and Social Action Plan” to fill the gaps.

“We think we do environmental risk management as well or better than anybody in the business,” said Flaherty.

“We've always been pretty forthright about our financing of the energy sector, the really fundamental part of the global economy,” said Smith. "We try really hard to be transparent about this activity.” She explained that under the new strategy, Citi is committing “to increasingly include portfolio-level review for high-risk sectors, so that we, our bankers, our risk managers, our clients, are all on top of these risk and are managing them appropriately.”

Moreover, she said, the new strategy also commits the bank “to establish an early-warning system for emerging trends and risks so that we're continuing to stay on top of these risks and are helping to advise our clients on these as well.”

Banking as usual?

Reviewing Citi’s new commitments, I began to wonder how much all this was simply business as usual — after all, lending, investing and managing risk is what banks do. The fact that more of it is going into environmental initiatives is simply a matter of going where the market is.

Smith and her colleagues disagreed with that assessment. The new commitments, they said, represent a thorough integration of sustainability into business strategy.

“This is the first time that we're publishing a multi-year strategy that aligns a lot of activities across Citi's different businesses into one cohesive document,” said Smith. She pointed out that Citi has a number of operational footprint goals and other initiatives that are tied to the company’s sustainability strategy.

Moreover, she noted, the strategy was developed using a multi-stakeholder process. “We worked with Ceres during 2014 to convene a pretty diverse group of stakeholders, including advocacy NGOs, clients and investors. We pulled them all together and gave them a draft of the strategy with the goals and asked them for their feedback.”

Smith added: “Citi has had about 15 years of hard work and engagement on environmental and sustainability issues. We got to a point where we had this groundswell of activity that we could leverage to get even more innovation.”

Some of that leverage may be inside the company itself: The audience for the new commitments and goals is employees as much as external stakeholders, said Pam Flaherty.

“Part of this is aimed at enhancing and changing the culture internally so that this is increasingly embedded in all nooks and crannies across the company. It's part of the way we do business. The power of getting everybody internally behind something here is amazing.”

]]>No publisherMegan Doherty2015-02-18T18:03:27ZPress ClipThe market doesn't charge for Florida's climate riskhttp://www.ceres.org/press/press-clips/the-market-doesnt-charge-for-floridas-climate-risk
Twenty-year government bonds and thirty-year mortgages are bumping into the horizons for serious damage to South Florida from rising seas. So far, those enormous risks haven’t sent home prices tumbling, or sent borrowing costs skyrocketing.

"It doesn’t get us down to human time scale of, 'What decade will it happen?'" he says. "Or, 'What year will it happen?'"

As a Fort Lauderdale home-owner, Englander thinks that uncertainty works to his advantage, for now. He thinks he might sell in five or ten years — to get out while the getting is good — and he thinks his case isn’t unusual. Even though the typical mortgage is 30 years, many home-owners think about their investment in five-year increments.

That’s the same horizon bond-rating agencies use when they evaluate public-works plans. That's as far as they can look, says Geoff Buswick, who runs the public-finance infrastructure group at Standard and Poors.

"Once you get past that, the financial forecasts are softer," he says. "Fifteen years from now, it could be a completely different management team, and a completely different environment."

There’s a reason big investors are OK with a five-year evaluations of what may be, on paper, a bond with a 20, or 30 or 100-year payoff.

"Everyone thinks they’re going to be the first to realize where the risk is, the first to liquidate," says Leurig. "And that there will be an opportunity to roll that capital into the next thing, which will be less risky."

Keith London seems like someone who should be especially concerned about the risks of South Florida real estate. He’s a city commissioner and longtime homeowner in the Miami suburb of Hallandale Beach. Rising seas have already required some big spending there, just to protect the city’s drinking water supply.

But he doesn’t think his town has it worse. Just first.

"We are the canary in the coal mine," he says. "We have all the issues and all the problems. But this is a bigger problem than just South Florida. There’s going to be global disruptions, everywhere."

He hopes that means global mobilization to address the challenges.

Meanwhile, he thinks South Florida is a fine place to live.

]]>No publisherMegan Doherty2015-02-17T14:20:40ZPress ClipCorn Remains King in USDA Irrigation Surveyhttp://www.ceres.org/press/blog-posts/corn-remains-king-in-usda-irrigation-survey
It’s no secret that our agricultural industry is very thirsty, gobbling up 80 percent of the freshwater that America consumes each year. It takes a lot of water to feed the nation, and every five years we get an accounting of just how much it takes, for what crops and at what cost, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm and Ranch Irrigation Survey.It’s no secret that our agricultural industry is very thirsty, gobbling up 80 percent of the freshwater that America consumes each year. It takes a lot of water to feed the nation, and every five years we get an accounting of just how much it takes, for what crops and at what cost, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm and Ranch Irrigation Survey. The latest survey, released in November, shows an overall positive trend of irrigation water use declining, even as water use for certain crops, like corn, continues to soar.

Corn used 14 percent more irrigation water in 2013 than in 2008, according to survey results, while water use for all crops combined declined 3.7 percent (and 9 percent since 1998, the highest year on record). Those are remarkable findings considering corn production also used more irrigation water than any other crop.

American farmers are adopting more efficient irrigation techniques, which helps explain the overall drop in water use, but they are also facing decreased water availability due to a spate of recent droughts in the Midwest, Texas and California. With more extreme droughts expected on a warming planet, it’s only a matter of time before corn’s insatiable thirst bumps up against limited water supplies.

To be fair, there’s a reason why water use for corn production continues to climb. U.S. corn farmers are among the most productive in the world, generating another bin-busting harvest in 2014 of 14.2 billion bushels—enough corn to fill a freight train longer than the circumference of the Earth. This production supports a mammoth agricultural sector comprised not just of farmers, but also major food, feed and energy companies.

Nevertheless, corn guzzles more irrigation water than any other crop—an extraordinary fact considering the vast majority of U.S. corn (79 percent) is rain fed and does not rely on irrigation. Irrigation water applied to corn acres rose from 15.4 million acre-feet in 2008 to 17.9 million acre-feet in 2013, paralleling the dramatic increase in corn production during that same period – from 84.5 million to 93.7 million acres.

A key driver in corn’s growing demand for irrigation water is that the crop is increasingly farmed in arid regions such as Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, and California. Corn production has been expanding into regions with high water stress and groundwater depletion, in part because of the ethanol mandate for gasoline (in 2013, 35 percent of U.S. corn production was used by the ethanol industry). In fact, 87 percent of irrigated corn is now grown in regions with high or extremely high water stress.

Moreover, groundwater, which is dwindling rapidly in many agricultural regions, is the major source of irrigation water for corn. The amount of corn acres using groundwater for irrigation grew 11 percent between 2008 and 2013. More than half of that irrigated corn relies on the over-exploited High Plains aquifer that underlies eight states, including Nebraska, Kansas and Texas.

The good news is that corn farmers are becoming more water efficient. In fact, corn was one of the most water-efficient crops in 2013. Corn grain farmers have become 21 percent more water-efficient on a per acre basis between since 1984. That means they’re applying less water per acre to obtain the same level of production.

On a per bushel basis, the efficiency gains were even greater—45 percent between 1984 and 2013. Farmers were able to get more “crop per drop,” due in part to the replacement of flood irrigation with more-efficient center pivot irrigation. Eighty percent of corn grain acres now use center pivot irrigation.

Yet even with these efficiency gains, we have a problem. There is a fundamental mismatch between irrigation demand for corn production and long-term sustainable water supplies in many of the crop’s key growing regions.

As we seek solutions to water shortages from Kansas to California, addressing the water demands of corn will be critical to sustaining our water resources into the future. Some of the hundreds of major companies that rely on corn are waking up to this fact. For instance, Kellogg and Coca-Cola have begun partnering with corn suppliers, agronomic experts and farmers to measure and improve water efficiency at the field level. But many more companies need to do the same, and urgently.